Tracing Apps May Stem COVID-19 Spread Even When Only A Few Use Them – Study

The researchers simulated the spread of COVID-19 based on interactions at homes, offices, schools and social gatherings in Washington State’s King, Pierce and Snohomish counties.

“We see that all levels of exposure notification uptake levels in the UK and the U.S. have the potential to meaningfully reduce the number of coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths across the population,” Christophe Fraser, the study’s co-lead author and group leader in Pathogen Dynamics at Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Medicine, said in a statement.

The researchers noted that a contact tracing app is not a stand-alone intervention. They also said their model still represents a “dramatic simplification of the real world”, and does not take into account cross-county movement of people contributing to disease spread.

The research has not been peer-reviewed.